Birthdays & Valentines Day!

My mom and Saki's mom both have birthdays in February! We were able to talk with my mom, Kathleen, for awhile on skype and sang to her and earlier in the week we surprised Seru with a chocolate cheesecake when she came home from work. We are both so grateful for the examples our mothers have set for us in living the gospel standards and for all the sacrifices they have made on their children's behalf!

The pictures below are of a picnic at treasure island (not the prettiest place but good view of the boats and bay). We also saw a club rugby game (golden gate) while the kids played on a fun gnarled tree. Aunty Tima came up for a friends wedding and we loved seeing her even though it was too short! Saki's dad has been so kind in watching our kids for date night-and so we enjoyed an excellent lunch at PF Changs ; )

Rugby

After being married to Saki for almost 5 years I am beginning to enjoy Rugby. Growing up I didn't mind playing non-competitive sports but was never involved in any team sports and rarely attended or watched any sports events. As a result the competitive side of sports and watching random people play never much appealed to me. I never understood Saki's passion for the game.

Now I have been trying to learn more, by pestering Saki with questions when he watches a game and watching more intently what's happening. I don't know many rules, but I'm learning more and even learning some of the teams and actually look forward to watching games with him, when it's not early morning due to time zone differences... :P I think rugby is pretty neat, it's fun to play and fun to watch and it's neat to learn about different players though the commentators make me laugh.

This Saturday we had a picnic, watched the boats, and then played in the grass with the kids while watching a live club rugby game-golden gate- play on treasure island. It was pretty neat, and I actually would've enjoyed less distraction from the kids so I could focus more on the game (They had fun climbing on a cool old tree though, and loved the bugs and dirt and grass. Mere scraped her hand a little bit and told everyone she could meet about her "band" (aid) thanks for the hello kitty ones mom)

So-thank you Saki for introducing me to new things and expanding my horizons!

"scary"Stade Toulousain

Baker Beach

Excellent Stake Conference today-kind words to kids, duty to do temple work for our ancestors, the importance of little things like reading your scriptures, and the gaining personal testimony that the the Prophet is called of God to do the Lord's work! We should all seek to know his words and know about him so we can truly have a testimony of him and his role.

Photos from an excellent afternoon at Baker Beach and our the quest to get computer memory-thanks Thomas :)

The beautiful Peterson family :) (My mom's brother)

After soo many photos....

....now I have none. Just picture Glenn's scowl in your head (you'll have to send that to me Thomas) followed by a shy smile and Mere's huge smile! We had an excellent sunday today-Saki spoke in church and we had 2 musical #'s one by missionaries and one by two primary girls in our branch. Our youth sunday school class will now be english sunday school :) This morning Mere colored pictures and "helped" make peanut butter cupcakes and frosting for our neighbor who was celebrating her birthday today. We don't attend birthday parties on Sunday, but we thought we'd share some birthday joy:) Mere really likes to talk about her birthday every time someone else's is brought up. Speaking of which, Saturday was my grandma Elma Bradshaw's birthday! She turned 89!!! I just want to say how much I admire all that she has done to help her children and grandchildren and great grandchildren. She loves to be in contact with family and is still more on top of family happenings than I am. I always get news when I call :) She loves her family and the Lord and has spent her life in many acts of service for others.

Finishing our holiday photos....

I came into Mere's room the other day to see a row of animals diapered and underweared-she's so cute... The next handful of photos are of us and one of my BYU roommates, Michelle and her two children! We were thrilled to be able to meet up after about 4 years as she was over here to visit family over the holidays! It was fun to see our kids play-and see their personalities after only having heard about them by blogging, wish we lived closer...(they're close in age) and to chat in person!!! Thanks for a lovely day Michelle!!! Sorry it took so long to get the photos up :)

Uncle Thomas and Aunty Lisa came for a night!!!!! Yeah!!!!!!!!

We don't do Christmas cards-just time and $ but I want to say how much we appreciate all the lovely ones sent to us! If you would just move closer we would deliver you our Christmas treats! And this year thanks to Ursala, I got to give out Italian wedding cookies/snowball cookies (not pictured) rather than hoping someone would deliver me some! Mere loved helping though she can't resist eating as much as she can possibly get away with...

Opening presents